1954 Cadillac Coupe deVille
Rating: 11
Gallery purchased this swanky set of wheels a year and a half ago and lowered it as he did his Lincoln Continental hardtop. He rates this winner an 11 on a scale of 10, having completely redone it, customizing it with the help of his friends at Lucky 7 Customs in nearby Antioch.
"It's really a cherry, cherry car," Gallery says. "There's a ton of custom work done to it, that, if you're not a Cadillac person you wouldn't know. It's got custom bumper tips, a lot of custom trim, the front grille -- they hand sanded the curve in it. When you chop the top, it gives it more of a sleek look, because those cars originally had more of a bubble top. We chopped two and half inches in the front and four in the back and then lowered it, which really makes it look long and sleek."
Gallery proudly shows it off at Bay Area car shows as well as at the Grand National Roadster show in Pomona. Some of the awards this glorious Cadillac has won include the "Outstanding Paint" award, "West Coast Kustoms" award, and the "World's Most Beautiful Custom Runner Up" at the 2009 Sacramento Autorama and a "Course D'Elegance" award at the 2009 San Francisco Rod, Custom and Motorcycle Show. "You can enter lot of shows out here and park the car and hang out for the day and look at all the cars," Gallery says.
1949 Chevy Suburban
Gallery likes to tinker with little things on his cars, like replacing the window motors, but he is actively looking for parts for his 1949 Chevy Suburban, which is a work in progress. "I'm stripping it down and doing all the bodywork, replacing the panels," he says. "I'm slowly learning to do that myself. It's a way to get your mind off other things, and the finished product is something you did yourself. It's meditative and it's fun. I just enjoy the whole classic-car scene."
Car he learned to drive in
Although he now lives 20 minutes outside of Oakland, Gallery was born and raised near Masonville, Iowa, and lived on a family farm. That means he first learned to drive on a tractor at around 13 years old and then easily drove the family work truck, a 1984 Ford F-150.
"Once I learned to use a clutch when we learned to drive tractors, it carried over to driving the car with a clutch, so it was pretty easy," he says. Gallery never got to drive on the road until he got his license, but he often drove around the farm. His parents still farm, they have 800 acres of corn and soybeans.
Gallery grew up submersed in American car culture and the family owned 1970s Ford LTDs and Thunderbirds, which were the cars they drove to high school.